Unfortunately, in even such an idealistic free market, big companies can game the system. There has to be *some* regulation, just like there has to be laws against murder, and theft, and placing weasels down your trousers for the purposes of gambling. (Ahh, Chief Wiggum.)
Just as true communism is a wonderful idea that will never work on a large scale, so is a truly unfettered market such as you describe. Now, we certainly could come closer to the ideal than we currently are, but in truth, copyright isn't such a bad thing for creative works (which add no real value except the enjoyment they bring), in which I would include software. But, suppose we get rid of copyright, even. Software companies would then be forced to provide draconian DRM-type schemes, and enlist hardware vendors to aid them. This they *would* do. They are already twisting EULA into de-facto contracts, and that is exploitable as well. I don't imagine you are denying the importance and validity of contracts, so correct me if I'm wrong here.
Already, you don't purchase the software, you purchase a contract which allows you the right to use the software. At least, that is usual terms of the EULA. Software companies have *already* sidestepped the currently lenient copyright laws. In a world without copyright, that is the course they would pursue anyway.
It's not like Microsoft would be in a different position now than they would be in the world in which you describe. Their obfuscated protocols would still be a barrier to entry. They would still have their exclusive contracts with hardware vendors, locking out competitors based only on negotiated contracts.
In the long run, Microsoft doesn't have to rely on copyright as much as it does on licensing (that is, contract law). They would've had technical measures in place to substitute for copyright law enforcement.
That's the problem with companies the size of Microsoft. They create their own regulations, and force others into line using nothing but market pressure.
The creators do keep coming back to it, but never something quite so epic, and I had hoped that one of the spins offs (eg crusade) would have lived longer.
That would've taken better writing. B5 had some of the *best* writing in SF TV, consistently. There were a few lame episodes, but for the most part, the entire series was excellent.
Crusade, however.
Crusade shat. It started off OK, and the premise wasn't terrible (though not great). I would've very much liked to see it expanded into a real show. But the writing was painfully terrible. A few of the episodes were OK, but then you get complete scudge like the X-Files episode ("Visitors from Down the Street").
Anyway. I wish Crusade would've been better, but the episodes that aired didn't really deserve to be continued.
There is nothing stopping people from choosing what software they would like to use on their computer. The market is working just fine. Nobody is being coerced. However, you seem to be in favor of the government coercing a private business by force. Sounds like DoubleSpeak to me.
Right now, Microsoft has way more regulatory power than the government in the computer industry. Microsoft *does* coerce. Microsoft *does* force. Microsoft has the power to do those things, and they do them. That's why the were convicted of abusing their monopoly power.
The market is *not* working fine. The "market" does not work in the idealistic fashion they teach in Economics 101. It's a fair estimation of a balanced economy, and so is worthwhile learning, but in the real world, big companies have *way* more power than smaller companies. And if you only have one big company calling the shots, they are able to warp the economics of the industry around themselves. IBM did this thirty years ago, and their asses got busted in the 80s, and the world is a better place because of it.
Do I think Microsoft needs busted up? No, I don't. Do they need regulated? Yes, just like individuals need regulated. (For instance, it's illegal to punch strangers on the street. That's a damned good regulation, even though I want to do it myself sometimes. Are you going to complain that the government regulates individuals?) Just like all corporations need regulated.
I believe that Microsoft is losing its monopoly, but that's happening because of works like Linux, in which thousands of individuals cooperate and release their code for free. There is little chance of another company taking on Microsoft. IBM was the last one that could've, and they got too greedy. The hardware manufacturers didn't want IBM calling the shots on hardware, so they weren't quick to pick up OS/2, and IBM wasn't real bright about OS/2, anyway.
In the long run, Microsoft is doomed. But Microsoft has already fucked up the computing industry, and it's going to take years to recover. They are doing their best to sabotage their only real competitor, Linux. (OSX could be a competitor if Apple would allow others to preload it on PC clones, but that ain't happening.) They are using their *market power* to fuck up the industry even more, just to ensure their market superiority.
The market is being regulated by Microsoft itself. Market regulation happens. And I'd rather have it done by somebody with no vested interest in the market than by a company that has proven it is willing to "knife the baby" simply to hurt a competitor.
Too bad there's nobody without a vested interest. Because, like you, I don't trust the government to do an unbiased and rational regulatory job.
Look at your budget. Look at the housing market near the Perl job. If you can afford to pay off bills, live modestly, and still work on your debt, take the Perl job.
There is no reason to sacrifice short-term happiness, because in the long run, chances are you won't get that happiness back. Enjoy your life as much as possible.
I left a job I liked quite a lot to take a job with lower pay, simply because the work was cool, and the people I now work with are a lot of fun, too. I miss my old workmates-- they were some of the best friends I've ever had. But the new job is *way* too much fun, and there is significantly less pressure, and I get to be a lot more creative.
Trust me. Take the Perl job, if you can afford it.
So, Dvorak is *basically* saying that Benevolent and All-Power Microsoft would've ported their software to Linux *ages* ago, but IE and MS-Office and Outlook all require "OS Integration," which would make it so they have to release those applications under the GPL, or the Pink Unicorn Squad would hunt them down and gore them with their horns, and if they took to the sea, The Vengeful Narwhal would gore them in the same fashion as the pink unicorns.
Yep. That's about Dvorak's insightful grasp of reality.
Many honestly believed that this was critical to the war on terror. Now we know better, the problem I have with the Republicans is that they refuse to admit they were wrong (or fooled) and hang on to any flimsy Iraq/Terrorism link and justification they can. Nobody wants to admit they were wrong. But that is ok, we just told them.
They honestly believed it because the President told them it was necessary. The evidence presented to the American public was flimsy at best, and completely misleading at worst. They had no solid evidence for anything resembling WMD. In fact, the UN investigators had pretty much documented that Hussein had no way to produce WMDs, and no programs to get them. Although he was resisting UN inspectors, he was not hiding anything but his own weakness, and his pride.
The Yellow Cake documents were proven fake, and the White House responded by outing an undercover CIA agent. Nice.
They had no interest *whatsoever* in learning the truth about Iraq. They *wanted* to go into Iraq. If people honestly believed it was necessary for the war on terror, it's because they believed the President.
If the President honestly didn't know he was presenting weak evidence, that's a sign he's incompetent. So, he's either deceitful, or incompetent. Either way, intentional or not, his actions after this monumental mistake proves he doesn't care about either country, Iraq or America.
Nobody (well maybe Cheney, that guy seems to be pure evil sometimes), rubbing their hands together, cackling like Mr Burns about their plans to destroy the country.
Yes!
During the Reagan years, I got the impression the ex-actor wasn't so much an ex-actor after all. I mean, which makes more sense as President, a well-liked ex-actor, or the ex-head of the CIA? I suspect President Bush I served for 12 years, not 4.
What a great symmetry. I wouldn't be surprised if Cheney isn't the real President right now. What with his handouts in the billions to the company that's still paying him (shout-outs to my homeys at Halliburton), and his desire to invade Iraq predating 9/11, I wouldn't be surprised if this whole fiasco is his, with the incompetent Bush being his little puppet.
Anyway. That's just my liberal conspiracy-theory thinking. I don't think Bush or Cheney gives a rats ass about this country. If they did, they'd be doing something good for this country, not creating billions of dollars for their corporate friends. (How many no-bid contracts has Halliburton received? How about the recent one where they started building detention centers across the US?)
Ah, but now we've got those historically brilliant military supporters controlling the purse strings.
It doesn't matter how much funding the military has if it's controlled by moronic chicken-hawks who managed to duck out of war.
Considering we have more than double the military funding than the rest of the world combined, we should be doing a hell of a lot better in Iraq. Better yet, we shouldn't be doing anything in Iraq.
Me, too. I don't like Qt because it's essentially C++ only, and C++ is a lame-assed language. If GNOME because hooked on Mono, I'd dump it completely, because C# is a lame-assed language.
Qt openness isn't so much an issue anymore, but when GNOME started, it was a huge issue. At this point, Gtk+ is more open to outside contribution than Qt. That's about it.
This is perhaps the most nuanced take I have ever seen on the entire process. It certainly makes me feel better about my half-informed contributions to the system.
I wish more people would see voting as a requirement, rather than a right.
"Sometimes...the most responsible thing a person can do on election day is stay at home... If you really don't know enough to cast an intelligent vote, you should be eager to let your more informed neighbors make the decision."
"Intelligent" and "democracy" are orthogonal. You know how dumb the average American is? By definition, half are dumber. (Yeah, I know the difference between mean and median. It's a joke, and doesn't go over well with half of America if you use median. They just look at you and say, "Huh?")
Anyway.
Most people who vote are *mis*informed. It's taken me most of my adult life to realize this, but you know how we were taught be to truthful and honest when we were young? It seems politicians and businessmen learned exactly the opposite. Misdirection, misinformation, and complete falsehoods beat honesty in both business and politics.
So, I'd say your ignorance is an advantage. I half-seriously believe we'd be better off picking the person with the cooler name, something that leaves the voter completely ignorant of who it is they are voting for. It'd certainly beat the misinformation we currently vote on.
"Kerry is a flip-flopper!" "Bush is a tiny-dicked moron who used his daddy's influence to skip out of Vietnam!" (Well, he *does* have a tiny dick, but I don't know about the rest of it.) "Dean yells like a sissy-girl!" "Nader is a silly wank who would sell this country to Columbia for sixteen ounces of pure cocaine!"
And so on.
The truth is, we should select our leaders the same way we vote for American Idols, or whichever show allows people to vote. However that goes. I've never watched any of them, so I don't know how it's done. I hated it when they voted off Stevie Scott, though-- she was hot. But we could have that cool British guy telling them, "You have no talent. Your singing is for crap, and you haven't clipped your nostril hairs. Good-bye."
Or whatever.
Truly. We are the least-politically-educated country in the world, after Britain. I've met people in Thailand who knew more about our politics than any American.
Don't let your ignorance stop you, Man. Vote! And soon!
And just remember, vote Fascist. Don't worry, that'll be your only choice.
I see all this talk about Novell Licensing and non-Suse distros getting in trouble. What exactly does Linux need to license from MS? Could someone enlighten me?
Microsoft and Novell are entering into a "covenant" not to sue each other over patent infringement. This is important, as it implies many things:
First, it's a one-time cost. They won't have to pay a per-license cost for software. Microsoft is going to infuse Novell with quite a bit of money to become their new SCO.
Second, the wording of the GPL doesn't allow patent "licensing." If a patent license is required, then the software cannot be distributed under the GPL. Since this is a covenant, and not a license, perhaps this deal does not invoke that clause. This is the scariest aspect.
What Microsoft has done is to say that people who purchase licensed copies of Suse will not be sued. However, if you purchase from other companies (Red Hat), you may be sued.
They don't mention which patents, or anything else. This is very much like the SCO case, only with patents instead of copyright. Novell has signed up to be Microsoft's bitch on this, and buffers Microsoft from the SCO effect.
If history is any indication, and if there is a God, Novell will find out what it's like to be in SCO's shoes.
This is all a bunch of sound and fury, signifying Vista.
Seriously.
When XP rolled out a few years ago, a bunch of businesses used Linux to leverage better deals on corporate licenses for XP and MS-Office. Microsoft probably "lost" hundreds of millions (meaning they didn't make hundreds of millions more) this way.
Now that Linux is much more mature, some of those threats to migrate to Linux might actually turn out to be real. Wouldn't *that* suck for Microsoft. But even if they didn't, customers would use Linux like they did last time.
Many companies might delay rollout of Vista simply to take a "wait-and-see" approach, to see if anyone else is moving to Linux. It's not a big threat, but it is a threat. Microsoft needs Vista to not look like a flop out of the gate. This is a big launch for them, and they need it to look good, to drive early sales. Yes, they have the market locked up, but it's better to get everyone's money *now*, and not later, especially for their stock price.
Anyway. To me, that seems the most reasonable explanation, what with the timing of this. The important thing isn't that Linux is in trouble (which it is not); the important thing is that there is the *appearance* that Linux is in trouble.
So, everyone still happy with GNOME making Mono part of its base desktop?
Sure. Not so much with Mono, but I'm *way* happy with Gtk+/GNOME. Although, I have been running e17 for a while as my own desktop, GNOME is nice, and I have more faith in its openness than Qt. And GNOME is *not* Ximian/Novell. It's an independent project that Novell works on.
I'm taking a "wait and see" approach to Mono, though. I never liked C#, so never saw a real reason to use Mono. And the whole.Net framework blows monkey chunks. You can't even call multicast delegates in a thread-safe manner. Who's bright idea was *that*?
Anyway, this isn't a rant against Mono/.Net. It's a defense of GNOME, which is a damned fine desktop environment, even though I prefer e17.
How would that break the system? The iPod supports other music formats, not just Fairplay. The Zune could support PlaysForSure, which Microsoft pushed onto *other* PMP vendors, *and* Microsoft's PlaysForZune (or whatever). Then this wouldn't be a slashdot article at all.
This is really a bizarre move that makes it seem like Microsoft just wants an iron fist, to make sure the Zune only works with their music store and doesn't work with anything else at all, forcing customers to their music store.
This is why the whole system is fucked, and needs rebooting.
More often than not, these constituent parts are Open Source software systems and typically not designed to be used as components. These parts are then made to interoperate through wrappers and glue code.
Isn't that the point of Free software? That it is flexible, that we have the source code so we *can* make it do just what we want, rather than be limited by the original authors?
What's the point of coding from scratch if you don't have to?
Sorry if you misunderstood. I wasn't correcting you, I was drawing attention to the fact that you were sharing an opinion about an event that is KNOWN by it's date, yet you got it wrong.
Oh, I kind of skimmed over this. I didn't misunderstand you. I grew up with an ignorant asshole for a brother.
You misunderstood me: my post wasn't about 9/11. It was about G. W. Bush and his cabinet rushing us into a war against a country that had nothing to do with 9/11. It was about how G. W. Bush had a responsibility as President to make sure his evidence was solid. It was about how the evidence wasn't solid, and he chose to ignore that.
Just like you choose to ignore the point of my post. That's all well-and-good. This is ostensibly a free country, after all.
I agree it was a stupid mistake. I've been filling out paperwork with "November" in all the dates. When I wrote my original post, I thought "September" and wrote "November." It was a mistake of transcription, thought to page.
I'm glad you think it invalidates the concept that the President should be 100% sure of his evidence when going to war. I too like to ignore any post with typos, or posts that mix up dates that aren't even critical to the primary point of the post. That allows me to not think about it. There's a lot of posts here, after all, a lot of ideas I'd have to sift through.
Ah. So I see you trust our government will follow the regulation in its stated purpose, rather than the regulation as written.
The regulation *as written* will allow the government to place anyone at all the watch list. You. Me. Anyone they want. The great thing: they don't have to tell us we are on the list, nor explain why we are on the list once we are taken from the plane or boat, nor give us any means of appealing our inclusion on the list.
The wonderful thing about this is, instead of following current screening procedures during check-in, they can wait until the plane is about to take off, come haul us away, and we have no chance of rectifying the issue.
As it is, it takes me about 20 minutes more to check in than others, as my name is on a watch list. Imagine if they come take me off the plane just as it is about to take off. I have no chance of clearing up the issue as I do now.
There was once a requirement for "due process" in the Land of the Free. This is one more regulation (not even a law!) that subverts due process and gains us nothing.
When interpreting the intention of a regulation, you must look at the restrictions in the regulation. For this one, in spite of the stated purpose, there is no restriction on its use or abuse, and no method to redress abuses. Even if the people who drafted the regulation did not mean for it to be abused, it is completely open to abuse, and so it shall be.
It's not so much a non-story, I think, as one story among many illustrating the expansionist tendencies of the government. They are redefining current policy, and like a sketch of Hell, even the tiniest of lines indicate something completely evil.
Does that mean we should ignore this? Should we stop resisting every little step towards totalitarianism?
If we had a true plan for reforming our morally-corrupt government, I would follow it. If there was something else we could do, I would do it. But for the moment, the only real solution is education and the ballot box. The first is effective; the second less-so, because those vetted for the ballot seem to be clones of those already in office.
Slashdot Mirror
Unfortunately, in even such an idealistic free market, big companies can game the system. There has to be *some* regulation, just like there has to be laws against murder, and theft, and placing weasels down your trousers for the purposes of gambling. (Ahh, Chief Wiggum.)
Just as true communism is a wonderful idea that will never work on a large scale, so is a truly unfettered market such as you describe. Now, we certainly could come closer to the ideal than we currently are, but in truth, copyright isn't such a bad thing for creative works (which add no real value except the enjoyment they bring), in which I would include software. But, suppose we get rid of copyright, even. Software companies would then be forced to provide draconian DRM-type schemes, and enlist hardware vendors to aid them. This they *would* do. They are already twisting EULA into de-facto contracts, and that is exploitable as well. I don't imagine you are denying the importance and validity of contracts, so correct me if I'm wrong here.
Already, you don't purchase the software, you purchase a contract which allows you the right to use the software. At least, that is usual terms of the EULA. Software companies have *already* sidestepped the currently lenient copyright laws. In a world without copyright, that is the course they would pursue anyway.
It's not like Microsoft would be in a different position now than they would be in the world in which you describe. Their obfuscated protocols would still be a barrier to entry. They would still have their exclusive contracts with hardware vendors, locking out competitors based only on negotiated contracts.
In the long run, Microsoft doesn't have to rely on copyright as much as it does on licensing (that is, contract law). They would've had technical measures in place to substitute for copyright law enforcement.
That's the problem with companies the size of Microsoft. They create their own regulations, and force others into line using nothing but market pressure.
Yeah. Poor Microsoft is getting screwed, instead of doing the screwing. Everyone knows that Microsoft is a pitcher, not a catcher.
The creators do keep coming back to it, but never something quite so epic, and I had hoped that one of the spins offs (eg crusade) would have lived longer.
That would've taken better writing. B5 had some of the *best* writing in SF TV, consistently. There were a few lame episodes, but for the most part, the entire series was excellent.
Crusade, however.
Crusade shat. It started off OK, and the premise wasn't terrible (though not great). I would've very much liked to see it expanded into a real show. But the writing was painfully terrible. A few of the episodes were OK, but then you get complete scudge like the X-Files episode ("Visitors from Down the Street").
Anyway. I wish Crusade would've been better, but the episodes that aired didn't really deserve to be continued.
Elevators coming home to earth?
There is nothing stopping people from choosing what software they would like to use on their computer. The market is working just fine. Nobody is being coerced. However, you seem to be in favor of the government coercing a private business by force. Sounds like DoubleSpeak to me.
Right now, Microsoft has way more regulatory power than the government in the computer industry. Microsoft *does* coerce. Microsoft *does* force. Microsoft has the power to do those things, and they do them. That's why the were convicted of abusing their monopoly power.
The market is *not* working fine. The "market" does not work in the idealistic fashion they teach in Economics 101. It's a fair estimation of a balanced economy, and so is worthwhile learning, but in the real world, big companies have *way* more power than smaller companies. And if you only have one big company calling the shots, they are able to warp the economics of the industry around themselves. IBM did this thirty years ago, and their asses got busted in the 80s, and the world is a better place because of it.
Do I think Microsoft needs busted up? No, I don't. Do they need regulated? Yes, just like individuals need regulated. (For instance, it's illegal to punch strangers on the street. That's a damned good regulation, even though I want to do it myself sometimes. Are you going to complain that the government regulates individuals?) Just like all corporations need regulated.
I believe that Microsoft is losing its monopoly, but that's happening because of works like Linux, in which thousands of individuals cooperate and release their code for free. There is little chance of another company taking on Microsoft. IBM was the last one that could've, and they got too greedy. The hardware manufacturers didn't want IBM calling the shots on hardware, so they weren't quick to pick up OS/2, and IBM wasn't real bright about OS/2, anyway.
In the long run, Microsoft is doomed. But Microsoft has already fucked up the computing industry, and it's going to take years to recover. They are doing their best to sabotage their only real competitor, Linux. (OSX could be a competitor if Apple would allow others to preload it on PC clones, but that ain't happening.) They are using their *market power* to fuck up the industry even more, just to ensure their market superiority.
The market is being regulated by Microsoft itself. Market regulation happens. And I'd rather have it done by somebody with no vested interest in the market than by a company that has proven it is willing to "knife the baby" simply to hurt a competitor.
Too bad there's nobody without a vested interest. Because, like you, I don't trust the government to do an unbiased and rational regulatory job.
Don't get me started on java, the most resource hungry platform I've ever seen in my life.
.Net, then, nor Mono, which is worse.
.Net, and Mono is worse than .Net for resources.
You obviously haven't used
Java is a tiny little resource-miser compared to
But you are right. Java is no slim jim compared to even C++ or Objective-C, let alone pure C.
Look at your budget. Look at the housing market near the Perl job. If you can afford to pay off bills, live modestly, and still work on your debt, take the Perl job.
There is no reason to sacrifice short-term happiness, because in the long run, chances are you won't get that happiness back. Enjoy your life as much as possible.
I left a job I liked quite a lot to take a job with lower pay, simply because the work was cool, and the people I now work with are a lot of fun, too. I miss my old workmates-- they were some of the best friends I've ever had. But the new job is *way* too much fun, and there is significantly less pressure, and I get to be a lot more creative.
Trust me. Take the Perl job, if you can afford it.
You'll thank me later.
So, Dvorak is *basically* saying that Benevolent and All-Power Microsoft would've ported their software to Linux *ages* ago, but IE and MS-Office and Outlook all require "OS Integration," which would make it so they have to release those applications under the GPL, or the Pink Unicorn Squad would hunt them down and gore them with their horns, and if they took to the sea, The Vengeful Narwhal would gore them in the same fashion as the pink unicorns.
Yep. That's about Dvorak's insightful grasp of reality.
Many honestly believed that this was critical to the war on terror. Now we know better, the problem I have with the Republicans is that they refuse to admit they were wrong (or fooled) and hang on to any flimsy Iraq/Terrorism link and justification they can. Nobody wants to admit they were wrong. But that is ok, we just told them.
They honestly believed it because the President told them it was necessary. The evidence presented to the American public was flimsy at best, and completely misleading at worst. They had no solid evidence for anything resembling WMD. In fact, the UN investigators had pretty much documented that Hussein had no way to produce WMDs, and no programs to get them. Although he was resisting UN inspectors, he was not hiding anything but his own weakness, and his pride.
The Yellow Cake documents were proven fake, and the White House responded by outing an undercover CIA agent. Nice.
They had no interest *whatsoever* in learning the truth about Iraq. They *wanted* to go into Iraq. If people honestly believed it was necessary for the war on terror, it's because they believed the President.
If the President honestly didn't know he was presenting weak evidence, that's a sign he's incompetent. So, he's either deceitful, or incompetent. Either way, intentional or not, his actions after this monumental mistake proves he doesn't care about either country, Iraq or America.
Nobody (well maybe Cheney, that guy seems to be pure evil sometimes), rubbing their hands together, cackling like Mr Burns about their plans to destroy the country.
Yes!
During the Reagan years, I got the impression the ex-actor wasn't so much an ex-actor after all. I mean, which makes more sense as President, a well-liked ex-actor, or the ex-head of the CIA? I suspect President Bush I served for 12 years, not 4.
What a great symmetry. I wouldn't be surprised if Cheney isn't the real President right now. What with his handouts in the billions to the company that's still paying him (shout-outs to my homeys at Halliburton), and his desire to invade Iraq predating 9/11, I wouldn't be surprised if this whole fiasco is his, with the incompetent Bush being his little puppet.
Anyway. That's just my liberal conspiracy-theory thinking. I don't think Bush or Cheney gives a rats ass about this country. If they did, they'd be doing something good for this country, not creating billions of dollars for their corporate friends. (How many no-bid contracts has Halliburton received? How about the recent one where they started building detention centers across the US?)
Ah, but now we've got those historically brilliant military supporters controlling the purse strings.
It doesn't matter how much funding the military has if it's controlled by moronic chicken-hawks who managed to duck out of war.
Considering we have more than double the military funding than the rest of the world combined, we should be doing a hell of a lot better in Iraq. Better yet, we shouldn't be doing anything in Iraq.
Me, too. I don't like Qt because it's essentially C++ only, and C++ is a lame-assed language. If GNOME because hooked on Mono, I'd dump it completely, because C# is a lame-assed language.
Qt openness isn't so much an issue anymore, but when GNOME started, it was a huge issue. At this point, Gtk+ is more open to outside contribution than Qt. That's about it.
Doc,
This is perhaps the most nuanced take I have ever seen on the entire process. It certainly makes me feel better about my half-informed contributions to the system.
I wish more people would see voting as a requirement, rather than a right.
"Sometimes...the most responsible thing a person can do on election day is stay at home ... If you really don't know enough to cast an intelligent vote, you should be eager to let your more informed neighbors make the decision."
"Intelligent" and "democracy" are orthogonal. You know how dumb the average American is? By definition, half are dumber. (Yeah, I know the difference between mean and median. It's a joke, and doesn't go over well with half of America if you use median. They just look at you and say, "Huh?")
Anyway.
Most people who vote are *mis*informed. It's taken me most of my adult life to realize this, but you know how we were taught be to truthful and honest when we were young? It seems politicians and businessmen learned exactly the opposite. Misdirection, misinformation, and complete falsehoods beat honesty in both business and politics.
So, I'd say your ignorance is an advantage. I half-seriously believe we'd be better off picking the person with the cooler name, something that leaves the voter completely ignorant of who it is they are voting for. It'd certainly beat the misinformation we currently vote on.
"Kerry is a flip-flopper!"
"Bush is a tiny-dicked moron who used his daddy's influence to skip out of Vietnam!" (Well, he *does* have a tiny dick, but I don't know about the rest of it.)
"Dean yells like a sissy-girl!"
"Nader is a silly wank who would sell this country to Columbia for sixteen ounces of pure cocaine!"
And so on.
The truth is, we should select our leaders the same way we vote for American Idols, or whichever show allows people to vote. However that goes. I've never watched any of them, so I don't know how it's done. I hated it when they voted off Stevie Scott, though-- she was hot. But we could have that cool British guy telling them, "You have no talent. Your singing is for crap, and you haven't clipped your nostril hairs. Good-bye."
Or whatever.
Truly. We are the least-politically-educated country in the world, after Britain. I've met people in Thailand who knew more about our politics than any American.
Don't let your ignorance stop you, Man. Vote! And soon!
And just remember, vote Fascist. Don't worry, that'll be your only choice.
Fuck, I'd vote for that in a red-hot kitten-grinding minute.
I see all this talk about Novell Licensing and non-Suse distros getting in trouble. What exactly does Linux need to license from MS? Could someone enlighten me?
Microsoft and Novell are entering into a "covenant" not to sue each other over patent infringement. This is important, as it implies many things:
First, it's a one-time cost. They won't have to pay a per-license cost for software. Microsoft is going to infuse Novell with quite a bit of money to become their new SCO.
Second, the wording of the GPL doesn't allow patent "licensing." If a patent license is required, then the software cannot be distributed under the GPL. Since this is a covenant, and not a license, perhaps this deal does not invoke that clause. This is the scariest aspect.
What Microsoft has done is to say that people who purchase licensed copies of Suse will not be sued. However, if you purchase from other companies (Red Hat), you may be sued.
They don't mention which patents, or anything else. This is very much like the SCO case, only with patents instead of copyright. Novell has signed up to be Microsoft's bitch on this, and buffers Microsoft from the SCO effect.
If history is any indication, and if there is a God, Novell will find out what it's like to be in SCO's shoes.
This is all a bunch of sound and fury, signifying Vista.
Seriously.
When XP rolled out a few years ago, a bunch of businesses used Linux to leverage better deals on corporate licenses for XP and MS-Office. Microsoft probably "lost" hundreds of millions (meaning they didn't make hundreds of millions more) this way.
Now that Linux is much more mature, some of those threats to migrate to Linux might actually turn out to be real. Wouldn't *that* suck for Microsoft. But even if they didn't, customers would use Linux like they did last time.
Many companies might delay rollout of Vista simply to take a "wait-and-see" approach, to see if anyone else is moving to Linux. It's not a big threat, but it is a threat. Microsoft needs Vista to not look like a flop out of the gate. This is a big launch for them, and they need it to look good, to drive early sales. Yes, they have the market locked up, but it's better to get everyone's money *now*, and not later, especially for their stock price.
Anyway. To me, that seems the most reasonable explanation, what with the timing of this. The important thing isn't that Linux is in trouble (which it is not); the important thing is that there is the *appearance* that Linux is in trouble.
So, everyone still happy with GNOME making Mono part of its base desktop?
.Net framework blows monkey chunks. You can't even call multicast delegates in a thread-safe manner. Who's bright idea was *that*?
Sure. Not so much with Mono, but I'm *way* happy with Gtk+/GNOME. Although, I have been running e17 for a while as my own desktop, GNOME is nice, and I have more faith in its openness than Qt. And GNOME is *not* Ximian/Novell. It's an independent project that Novell works on.
I'm taking a "wait and see" approach to Mono, though. I never liked C#, so never saw a real reason to use Mono. And the whole
Anyway, this isn't a rant against Mono/.Net. It's a defense of GNOME, which is a damned fine desktop environment, even though I prefer e17.
How would that break the system? The iPod supports other music formats, not just Fairplay. The Zune could support PlaysForSure, which Microsoft pushed onto *other* PMP vendors, *and* Microsoft's PlaysForZune (or whatever). Then this wouldn't be a slashdot article at all.
This is really a bizarre move that makes it seem like Microsoft just wants an iron fist, to make sure the Zune only works with their music store and doesn't work with anything else at all, forcing customers to their music store.
This is why the whole system is fucked, and needs rebooting.
Terrorists will only kill a tiny number of us. Global warming will kill us all.
Guess which one is really scarier?
You're both right! Put the fans on the trees and turn them into flying trees.
More often than not, these constituent parts are Open Source software systems and typically not designed to be used as components. These parts are then made to interoperate through wrappers and glue code.
Isn't that the point of Free software? That it is flexible, that we have the source code so we *can* make it do just what we want, rather than be limited by the original authors?
What's the point of coding from scratch if you don't have to?
Sorry if you misunderstood. I wasn't correcting you, I was drawing attention to the fact that you were sharing an opinion about an event that is KNOWN by it's date, yet you got it wrong.
Oh, I kind of skimmed over this. I didn't misunderstand you. I grew up with an ignorant asshole for a brother.
You misunderstood me: my post wasn't about 9/11. It was about G. W. Bush and his cabinet rushing us into a war against a country that had nothing to do with 9/11. It was about how G. W. Bush had a responsibility as President to make sure his evidence was solid. It was about how the evidence wasn't solid, and he chose to ignore that.
Just like you choose to ignore the point of my post. That's all well-and-good. This is ostensibly a free country, after all.
I agree it was a stupid mistake. I've been filling out paperwork with "November" in all the dates. When I wrote my original post, I thought "September" and wrote "November." It was a mistake of transcription, thought to page.
I'm glad you think it invalidates the concept that the President should be 100% sure of his evidence when going to war. I too like to ignore any post with typos, or posts that mix up dates that aren't even critical to the primary point of the post. That allows me to not think about it. There's a lot of posts here, after all, a lot of ideas I'd have to sift through.
I'm glad to see I'm not the only one.
Ah. So I see you trust our government will follow the regulation in its stated purpose, rather than the regulation as written.
The regulation *as written* will allow the government to place anyone at all the watch list. You. Me. Anyone they want. The great thing: they don't have to tell us we are on the list, nor explain why we are on the list once we are taken from the plane or boat, nor give us any means of appealing our inclusion on the list.
The wonderful thing about this is, instead of following current screening procedures during check-in, they can wait until the plane is about to take off, come haul us away, and we have no chance of rectifying the issue.
As it is, it takes me about 20 minutes more to check in than others, as my name is on a watch list. Imagine if they come take me off the plane just as it is about to take off. I have no chance of clearing up the issue as I do now.
There was once a requirement for "due process" in the Land of the Free. This is one more regulation (not even a law!) that subverts due process and gains us nothing.
When interpreting the intention of a regulation, you must look at the restrictions in the regulation. For this one, in spite of the stated purpose, there is no restriction on its use or abuse, and no method to redress abuses. Even if the people who drafted the regulation did not mean for it to be abused, it is completely open to abuse, and so it shall be.
It's not so much a non-story, I think, as one story among many illustrating the expansionist tendencies of the government. They are redefining current policy, and like a sketch of Hell, even the tiniest of lines indicate something completely evil.
Does that mean we should ignore this? Should we stop resisting every little step towards totalitarianism?
If we had a true plan for reforming our morally-corrupt government, I would follow it. If there was something else we could do, I would do it. But for the moment, the only real solution is education and the ballot box. The first is effective; the second less-so, because those vetted for the ballot seem to be clones of those already in office.
Great. Now I'm just depressing myself.